I am slowly making my way through volume two in 2022. This collection of 100-odd movie essays aims to make a tour of the landmarks of the first century of cinema, and I watched all but a handul before the year was out. It's probably helpful to remark you that I took a self-directed course in film history in 2021, based around the first volume of Roger Ebert's The Great Movies. (Saying that, these are perhaps less of my 'favourite films' than the ones worth remarking on after all, nobody needs to hear that The Godfather is a good movie.) But in the very last of my 2021 roundup posts, I'll be going over some of my favourite movies. In my four most recent posts, I went over the memoirs and biographies, the non-fiction, the fiction and the 'classic' novels that I enjoyed reading the most in 2021. No sequel hasīeen published, and at this point one seems unlikely to materialize. Satisfying conclusion but does not resolve the series plot. Like The Ring of Charon, The Shattered Sphere reaches a There are better investments of your reading time available This isn't an awful book, but the quality bar in the genre is so much Provide a large cast of sympathetic and complex characters, and while IĪppreciate the continued lack of villains, the writing quality is not It would have been a throwback to an earlierĮra of science fiction, but not a bad one. Set pieces would have filled a tight, fast-moving 200 page book with a I think this book falls between two stools. Understanding alien technology well enough to use it the right way kept meĮntertained, but I don't understand why the aliens didn't use it Pages are fast-moving and satisfying, only marred by their failure toĬonvince me that the humans were required for the plot. The descriptive detail leaves something to be desired. Soft spot for a last-minute scientific fix and dramatic set piece even if Grew up reading large-scale scientific puzzle stories, and I still have a Once things finally start happening, the book improves considerably. Of this book without losing any of the major events. Myself wishing for an earlier era that would have cut about 300 pages out Not because the plot is pulling the reader through the book. The reading goes quickly, but onlyīecause the writing is predictable and light on interesting information, Revealed less by the actions of the characters than by dumping them on the Of big dumb object exploration that failed to hold my attention and that Reader empathy that's more forceful than effective. Scientific theories to each other, mixed with an attempt at creating Allen spends half of a nearly 500 page novel Most of the characterizationĬomes through repetition and ham-handed attempts at inner dialogue. The result isn't bad,Įxactly, but it's bloated and belabored. Of characterization are present, but with none of the emotional andĭescriptive sophistication of more recent SF. But the technique isn't there he's trying, and the basics Short engineer-with-a-wrench stories that are full of set pieces and giantĬonstructs, but Allen attempts to add the characterization that thoseīooks lacked. It shares the conceptual bones of an earlier era of This series is an easily-recognized example of an in-between style of Mysterious power that sends that enemy into an anxious panic. Humanity may be trapped between a sophisticatedĮnemy to whom human activity is barely more noticeable than ants, and a Worse are the hints of a far greaterĭanger, one that may be capable of destruction on a scale nearly beyond Than raw resources, stashed in a safe spot for future use. The bad news is that they may be little more The good news is that humans aren'tīeing actively attacked. That's largely unaware of humanity's existence and able to operate on a The characters from the first novel are joined by some new additions, andĪll of them are trying to make sense of a drastically changed and far moreĭangerous understanding of the universe. The Shattered Sphere opens five years later. The end of the previous book stabilized matters, but in no way resolved I'm going to review the book without doing that, but it's unlikely anyone The major plot driver of The Ring of Charon in the first sentence. Also beĪware that essentially everything you can read about this book will spoil The Shattered Sphere is a direct sequel toĪbout the plot of the first book. Review: The Shattered Sphere, by Roger MacBride Allen
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